AudioShocker

19 Responses to “AudioShocker Podcast #134 - Your Burrito's Gonna Suck”

1. 1 ross
   June 8, 2010 at 12:10 pm

   omg, battlefield earth.

   i like Olivia Munn pretty well, but i'm not familiar with her position in the fandom culture other than that Chun Li costume pic i found last time you guys talked about her.

   i don't have much of an opinion on Miley Cyrus. i don't really find her attractive at all but i also don't find myself recoiling. she's completely off my radar except when you guys talk about her (same with Olivia Munn).

   i think it was for the best that the first recording was screwed up, this new one is probably better for it. except you guys didn't include anything about Battlefield Earth!!! :(

2. 2 nick marino
   June 8, 2010 at 3:55 pm

   i only watched 10 mins of, and spent most of that time checking on my Elio's in the toaster over. it's so bad. but sort of intriguing.

3. 3 neal
   June 8, 2010 at 6:51 pm

   ross finally got a gravatar.

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4. 4 ross
   June 9, 2010 at 1:22 am

   nick: yeah, Battlefield Earth is horrendous, but without a doubt worth a watch due to its horrendousness.

5. 5 kaylie
   June 9, 2010 at 2:40 pm

   i lol'd at Nick hating on Voltaire's perm.

   the idea of Olivia Munn exploiting her fan base seems a little weird to me...i guess mainly because if you're a female entertainer of any kind you're exploiting a straight male fan base to some degree, unless you're one of the rare cases where your fan base is mostly female or gay. you pretty much can't be famous if you're a woman and you're not totally hot. and i could be wrong, but i don't recall Olivia Munn ever declaring that she's that into video games or comics or whatever, it just seems like her PR people or whatever promote her that way, but then again i don't really know anything about her. there were plenty of other girls on G4 who were genuinely into nerd stuff, like Blair Butler seemed to genuinely know a bit about comics and be into them. I think Olivia just out-shines all the other G4 ladies by virtue of her hotness.

6. 6 ross
   June 9, 2010 at 3:30 pm

   kaylie: i think about that, too, how womens' fame is almost always in some degree correlated with their perceived hotness regardless of their actual ability in anything (plenty of them genuinely are great at what they do, to be fair. NAOMI WATTS.), and i think about how things regarding that have gotten worse and worse and more extreme as our country seems to focus more and more on sex appeal + youth. like remember the time when Roseanne was THE SHIT? who do we have who's like that these days, women who don't fit into the narrow starlet ideal? who else was like that, umm.. Kathy Bates maybe? not sure if she was ever super famous outside of Misery. ummm... yeah all right, nevermind, all i can think of is Roseanne.

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7. 7 neallllll
   June 9, 2010 at 10:14 pm

   Kathy Bates is still plenty popular. And what about Betty White's resurgence? She's like the only Golden Girl left - and I think she just got her own show next season.

   I'm probably not doing myself any favors by bagging on Olivia Munn (or Lights, or VV Brown, or any of the other artists who use comics to sell records) -- but if TV is so manufactured, and there is such a HUGE supply of potential talent, why not find someone genuine who fits all the other TV requirements?

   Is casting really that fucked up that the right people can never get the gig that fits?

   Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud - and this is also why Hollywood will never be my home.

8. 8 nick marino
   June 10, 2010 at 8:23 am

   Oprah, Judi Dench, Catherine O'Hara, Jane Lynch, Barbara Walters, Katie Couric, Barbra Streisand, Kathy Griffin, Kristen Wiig, Ellen DeGeneres -- those are just a few off the top of my head who currently have very successful careers that aren't necessarily connected to attractiveness in the here and now (and at least not to a male fan base). not saying that it isn't an issue, and definitely more so than men, but i think that male personalities are often under very similar to be attractive, especially nowadays, even though the pressure may be slightly decreased for their gender. i'm not saying you're wrong, Kaylie and Ross, just saying that i don't think this is female specific nor do i think it's a huge epidemic.

9. 9 kaylie
   June 10, 2010 at 12:52 pm

   it's probably just that i don't really know many actors/celebrities in general, but i don't know who the majority of ladies on your list are, Nick. XD i don't mean to suggest there's this huge epidemic of talentless, bubble-headed hot girls getting hired in hollywood, or that men aren't also subject to ridiculous standards set by society/media. i was just remarking on how it seems that all the super-star girls that are shoved in our faces every day are usually super popular because of their perceived sexuality instead of whatever talent they supposedly possess.

   a recent thing that comes to mind is all the hooplah surrounding megan fox quitting/being fired from transformers 3. supposedly they've found a girl to replace her, and she's this gorgeous victoria's secret model or something, with little or no acting experience. so obviously, at least in this one case, being hot greatly outweighs ability.

   and i don't wanna get too into it or whatever, but you have to admit there is a huge gap in how expectations of men and women differ in society. there's a reason that there's such a higher instance of eating disorders and body image dissatisfaction in young women. not to say it isn't also on the rise in young men. i guess all i'm trying to say is that not always, but in the overwhelming majority of the time, a woman's measure of her value in the entertainment industry and even society is how "hot" she is, regardless of her accomplishments or talents (or lack thereof), whereas men have the luxury of being valued solely for their talents and accomplishments even if they aren't the physical ideal.

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10. 10 ross
    June 10, 2010 at 6:42 pm

    i agree with Kaylie, and i do think it's near-epidemic status, at least in America, i think you're fooling yourself otherwise. obviously there are exceptions but that's what they are, exceptions. it's like the difference between aging, blobby male movie stars still getting first-billing work and lauded and paired with younger female love interests, and the fact that it rarely if ever goes the other way with the genders flipped. where's a Judi Dench-headlined movie where she gets with Josh Hartnett or whoever? and also obviously there are vapid looks-only male stars like Zac Efron whose acting ability nobody could give two shits about, but i think once you get out of the teen market it gets a lot starker and more divided in terms of this stuff.

    i see this a lot in music, too, like if you have a band with a hot girl lead singer you have a great chance of hitting it big, but imagine if Blues Traveler or somebody like that had a woman of similar looks, no way would they have ever got so big. where's the female counterpart to Meat Loaf, you know? XD

11. 11 neal
    June 10, 2010 at 6:59 pm

    uh.... ross have you heard about the new Queen Latifa joint, Just Carter?

    and what about Macy Gray? She always does guest spots on records - but rarely gets any real face time.

12. 12 nick marino
    June 10, 2010 at 7:10 pm

    i agree and i don't agree, possibly just because of the way i live and the sort of culture i expose myself too... and also because of my sexuality and how i perceive it, which i could see as a sort of distorting factor for me in this whole conversation just because my taste has always skewed heavily on the hetero side.

    while i see both of you write about how there are barely any women out there who are being valued for talent above hotness, all i can think about are the ones who are being valued for talent first! Tina Fey, Pam Halpert, Lady Gaga etc. these are all women who may express some sexuality, but i don't find any of them particularly sexually attractive. they're top shelf talents and pretty big celebs. (and i'm sure you think i'm nuts for my inclusion of Gaga... but just because she's sexual, that doesn't mean she's sexually attractive... well, at least not to me and it's hard for me to imagine her being labeled as hot, at least not by other guys like me).

    and i say that not to say you're wrong but to say that i think there's a different way of seeing things. for example, your female counterpart to Meat Loaf? i'll one-up you -- Aretha Franklin. Meat Loaf would be her opening act!

    and the thing that confuses me most is... are we talking about weight primarily? cause most of the examples i see you guys site are heavier women and heavier men. don't get me wrong -- i understand the effect that weight can have on self-image and self-confidence. i have intimate experience with people suffering from eating disorders (no, not Justique!) and people frustrated with weight in general. i understand how it is. and i agree there is a lack of curvy or heavy women (and i mean two different things by those words -- Jennifer Hudson is (no, was) curvy and Gabourey Sidibe is heavy) in American celebrity culture. and the i also agree the standards are different, wherein heavy men can get top billing while heavy women rarely see the same treatment.

    but if your main argument is to say that there's an unbalance in American celebrity culture when it comes to the connection between weight and gender, then i think that needs to be the argument and not just "hotness is valued more than talent in female celebs."

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13. 13 ross
    June 10, 2010 at 11:05 pm

    Nick: but again, you're citing exceptions, and i'm not trying to devalue those exceptions but i'm trying to talk about the other 85% or whatever. and i'm not really taking personal sexual preference into account here, just comparing these people to the American ideal, which is thin preferably youthful white girl/woman, whether you personally find them attractive isn't really the issue, heh. plus all those women you listed are thin white women and have done "sexy" photo shoots for magazines and all that stuff (which is fine).

    i wasn't trying to single out heavier celebs but yeah, i do think the weight thing is a definite factor, since both fat men and women are pretty desexualized in media and movies and stuff, and that and "non-hotness" usually go hand in hand in the public eye since everybody is so obsessed with thin-ness. i think in your last paragraph you're just arguing semantics, the unbalance in connection between weight/gender vs. hotness being valued over talent in female celebs is basically the same issue or at least related. obviously "hotness" is subjective from person to person but i'm using "hotness" to mean the basic, narrow American beauty ideal, and i think that's what Kaylie's using it for, too, the ideal that doesn't include heavier women but which is often excused for men because there are different expectations for each gender at play.

14. 14 nick marino
    June 11, 2010 at 8:02 am

    this is the response where my own personal bias and blocks are really gonna show! first, Ross, i see all your points to a degree but don't necessarily understand or relate to them all. and when it comes to hotness, it's hard for me not to mix it up with my own personal taste. it's even hard for me not to confuse the idea of hotness with sexual attractiveness period... which takes me to my next thing that's confusing me / mixing me up -- so some of the peeps i listed have done sexy photo shoots even if they're not that sexy (well, at least, to me) and even if they don't use sex as their main selling point. how does that necessarily make them part of the discourse? i thought we were talking about Megan Fox types who subsist as a celebrity almost solely on hotness or sexual appeal? SO CONFUSED.

    i guess i'm so confused by everything because i don't have the same definition of hotness, and furthermore, i either don't know or see a completely different definition of hotness when it comes to the American beauty ideal. frankly, other than long hair and sexy stares, i'm not sure i know what the American beauty ideal is anymore. i read comic book websites and CNN and stream Netflix, so i'm rarely even exposed to mentions of someone like Megan Fox, for example. if you were to ask me personally the American beauty ideal nowadays, i'd say it's Beyonce and J-Lo and Aniston and UGHHHHH yuck Miley and American Apparel ads. don't get wrong -- there are lots of similarities to the stuff you've been saying if those women and their images are used as guide points. but there's also a lot of inclusiveness too.

    anyway, you know i love arguing semantics!!!! i think it's almost impossible to not argue semantics because the way something is said and the context it's said in means everything!

15. 15 ross
    June 11, 2010 at 11:40 am

    haha, yeah, i'm getting confused too. i think the conversation started out as the Megan Fox-type celeb who subsists on hotness alone and nobody gives a shit about her abilities, but it expanded to broader gender inequalities and expectations in media, which the first topic is a part of.

    when you listed your examples of women who had talent (Tina Fey, etc.) and i was saying they had done magazine photoshoots or whatever, i meant that even though they're all talented, that they were still very much valued for their "perceived hotness," let's call it, because they fit into the traditional female celebrity look, so i meant you'd need better examples.

    so, i don't know, basically all i'm saying, and i think what Kaylie is saying, is yeah, there's a big disparity in how genders are treated in media/the public eye/whatever and there are different things that are expected of each of them and different things that are looked for. which is fine, the sexes ARE different, but i just think it's at a point where a lot of people end up hurt and overlooked and left out and spit out and then things end up with girls being obsessed with looks and thin-ness and all that stuff blah blah blah. i guess we got too broad in the discussion too fast and lost focus.

    i still think Lady Gaga is hot. ;) you know i think is super smokin' and maybe you guys will hate me for this or think i'm totally shallow? Kim Kardashian. o_o'

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16. 16 neal
    June 11, 2010 at 12:00 pm

    KimK looks good sometimes. Gaga? never. Also, her new Alejandro video is total shit.

    and jesus people, all i wanted to do was disparage olivia munn and you had to go all serious!

17. 17 ross
    June 11, 2010 at 2:24 pm

    haha, yeah, all this from just some innocuous olivia munn talk. sorry, guys!

18. 18 kaylie
    June 11, 2010 at 5:17 pm

    thanks, Ross! you pretty much captured all my points. sorry i had to digress off into some big girl's point of view of girls in media-type thing.

    Lady Gaga is hot to me, but her weirdness scares me.

    Ross: Kim Kardashian is totally hot, i agree!

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19. 19 nick marino
    June 11, 2010 at 6:56 pm

    let us all agree that we think Kim Kardashian is hot.